The Handbook of Work Analysis

This new handbook, with contributions from experts around the world, is the most comprehensive treatise on work design and job analysis practice and research in over 20 years. The handbook, dedicated to Sidney Gael, is the next generation of Gael’s successful Job Analysis Handbook for Business, Industry and Government, published by Wiley in 1988. It consists of four parts: Methods, Systems, Applications and Research/Innovations. Finally, a tightly integrated, user-friendly handbook, of interest to students, practitioners and researchers in the field of Industrial Organizational Psychology and Human Resource Management. 

Sample Chapter available:

Chapter 24, Training Needs Assessment by Eric A. Surface is available for download.

Dr. Mark A. Wilson, Associate Professor of Psychology, NC State University, joined the faculty in 1992. He received a B.A. in Psychology from Wartburg College (1975), an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (1978), and a Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Ohio State University (1983).

While completing the Ph.D., he served as Project Coordinator, Technical Director, and Senior Research Associate for Organizational Research and Development Inc. on a comprehensive human-resource research project involving human-resource planning, job analysis, selection (managerial assessment centers), performance appraisal, and compensation for a market- leading insurance company. The experience drastically altered his view of the field and his research interests. It was while working on the project that he developed his interest in the integration of human-resource systems, comprehensive job analysis, his dedication to the scientist-practitioner model and the problems of practitioners, and his love for fieldwork.

He has always been interested in work measurement issues, models of human job performance in organizations, and research methods. He has consulted and conducted research extensively with numerous large organizations in both the private and public sectors. He has taught graduate and undergraduate management courses as an Assistant Professor at both Texas Tech University (1981-1985) and Iowa State University of Science and Technology (1985-1992). In 1999, he was made an honorary member of the United States Army Special Forces. In 2006, he was appointed editor of Ergometrika (The Journal of Work Measurement Research).

Dr. Winston "Wink" Bennett, Jr. is a Senior Research Psychologist and Technical Advisor for continuous learning and performance assessment research with the Air Force Research Laboratory Human Effectiveness Directorate in Dayton Ohio. He is a Fellow of the Air Force Research Laboratory and is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Wink and his team conduct and support core collaborative research programs and has garnered over $100M in outside funding investment. He and the team are actively involved in research related to performance evaluation, personnel assessment, training requirements identification, and quantifying the impact of organizational interventions - such as interactive, high fidelity immersive simulation environments and job redesign/restructuring and training systems impacts on individual, team, and organizational learning and effectiveness. Wink maintains an active presence in the international research community through his work on various professional committees and his contributions in professional journals and forums. He has published over 90 research articles, textbooks, chapters, and technical reports in the Human Factors, Aviation, Industrial and Organizational Psychology literatures. He serves as a contributing editor and/or as a reviewer for several professional journals. His involvement with the larger psychological research community ensures that communication amongst international military, industry and academic researchers remains consistent and of the highest quality.

Shanan Gwaltney Gibson (Ph.D., Virginia Tech) is an Associate Professor of Management at East Carolina University. Shanan’s research focuses on topics relevant to human resources and organizational development including work analysis, entrepreneurship and technology in organizations. She currently serves as a member of the Social Security Administration’s Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel. Active in several professional organizations such as the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, the Small Business Institute, and the Southeastern Chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, Shanan is also an Associate Editor of the Small Business Institute® Journal. Shanan received her Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Virginia Tech.

George M. Alliger is Vice President of Solutions for the Group for Organizational Effectiveness, Incorporated (gOE). He received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Akron and holds a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Xavier University.

Dr. Alliger has conducted research and published extensively in the area of training, including issues of methods and analysis. His meta-analytic research into training evaluation led to a reexamination of the assumption of convergence among different training measures and won the first annual "Best Research Paper" award from the American Society for Training and Development. He has managed numerous job analyses, training evaluation, test development, and performance certification projects. For over a decade he taught training, evaluation, and statistics as Assistant and Associate Professor the State University of New York at Albany, where he is currently an adjunct faculty member.

Dr. Alliger helped develop the architecture for establishing Mission Essential Competencies (MECs) that has been widely adopted by the US Air Force and is now in use by the US Navy. Research from this program won the 2008 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace, presented by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.